


Kenny

by Pippin



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Character Development, Character Study, M/M, POV Second Person, mentions of overdose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-27
Updated: 2017-03-27
Packaged: 2018-10-11 17:05:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10469928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pippin/pseuds/Pippin
Summary: You’re seventeen and “Kenny” means home in a way you never thought you’d know.





	

You’re seventeen and “Kenny” means home in a way you never thought you’d know.  It means safety, held tight in the arms of the first boy you’d ever fallen for who loved you back.  It means stolen moments in hotel rooms and empty billet houses, hot kisses and skin against skin.  It means being happy in a way you hadn’t thought was meant for people like you.  It means everything going right for once.

You’re eighteen and “Kenny” hurts, a stab wound straight through the heart.  It means finding that boy you loved on the bathroom floor, barely breathing, calling an ambulance and the Zimmermanns in complete shock, not even in tears.  It means going first in the draft, a spot that should never have been yours.  It means going to visit for the second time, ink barely dry on your NHL contract and a sour taste in your mouth—you weren’t the first choice; you never were.  It means having a door slammed in your face, all but literally.  It means breaking down in wrenching sobs in a hospital hallway.  It means getting shut out and, once again, being reminded that love was never meant for the people as broken and fucked up as you.

You’re twenty and no one has called you Kenny in what feels like a lifetime.  You nearly bit Swoops’ head off for trying, so one else has.  You’re still not quite happy, but hoisting the Stanley Cup over your head helps.  The first Cup for you, the first Cup for your team.  It means so little, though, compared to the mid-season shakeups on the team prior to the win.  The captain of the team retires with yet another concussion and you’re the one called in to receive the C along with the words that change everything—“we always wanted you, Kent.  Even if Zimmermann hadn’t dropped out, we still would have taken you first.”

You’re twenty-one and your boy is back in the news, back on the hockey stage.  You can return to Kenny, you think.  He’s only playing NCAA, but you can give him a push.  Your team has the cap space to take Jack Zimmermann, and management knows the Parson-Zimmermann legend.  If they can get Zimms, they will.  Your task is to woo him, both as the captain and as Kenny, to get him to leave college hockey behind, go to something bigger.  It doesn’t quite go as planned, but you leave promising yourself that you’re going to get him.

You’re twenty-four and as soon as you see him you know that Kenny is lost forever.  You see the way he looks at the little blond boy and the way his whole demeanor falls to shreds the moment he sees you.  Later, “Kenny” falls from his lips, but it’s more a curse than the prayer it used to be.  You try to talk to him, but he’s so shut off and you know that Zimms-and-Kenny is lost.  It’s your eighteen-year-old heartbreak all over again.

You’re twenty-five and you’ve never really paid more than cursory attention to the Falconers before.  They were just a few games out of the eighty-two, an expansion team that hardly posed a threat.  A solid middle-of-the-road team.  But then Zimms goes and signs with them and suddenly the Falcs are very much on your radar.  Enough, at least, to make risky plays, pissing people off and generally amping up that smug persona you radiated on the ice.  After Zimms scores to tie the game you lose your temper—not that anyone would know—and score in response, taking out the goalie instead of peeling off or stopping.  As the call for a coach’s challenge rings across the ice, members of the Falcs take justice into their own hands and someone grabs you by your scruff, pulling you out of the scrum as he swears at you in Russian.  As a lineman pulls you free you get a look at your aggressor and you definitely only slip from the change in pull on your body.  He’s six inches taller than you, handsome even through the outrage that crosses his face as it’s announced that your goal stands.  And later, as he fucks all thoughts of Zimms clear out of your head, you think that maybe you could be okay again.

You’re twenty-nine and you’re crying for the first time in over ten years.  “Kenny?” Alexei asks worriedly from where he kneels in front of you.  He has never called you that before, but in proposing he has gone through any name that could be used for you, the romantic fool.  The name sounds so different rolling off a Russian tongue than a Quebecois one and you can see good memories replacing the bad as you nod frantically through your tears and let Alexei slide his ring onto your finger.  “Love you, Kenny,” Alexei says as he rises to his feet and kisses you deeply.

You’ve come full circle.  “Kenny” means home again.  And you’re finally happy.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote all of this in my classes today, so hopefully it's more coherent than my notes. 
> 
> This is also crossposted on my ChecK Please sideblog, pies-and-rocks.


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